Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 – A Bold New Future

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Treyarch takes the franchise in exciting new directions.

By Anthony Gallegos

Call of Duty: Black Ops 2's take on the future might be the most frightening thing I've seen in years. Instead of cliches like lasers and space, Treyarch's fifth Call of Duty game presents a world that's different, yet totally plausible. Change is coming to Call of Duty, and Black Ops 2 presents not only an evolution in terms of the technology you'll be playing with, but also in regards to the franchise's storytelling and design.

The thing about Black Ops 2's take on the future is that it doesn't venture too far from where we are now. Part of the campaign takes place during the 80s, where familiar faces from Black Ops return (Woods did not die), but the vast majority of the story takes place in 2025. Here you'll assume the role of Black Ops protagonist Alex Mason's son, David Mason, who lives in a believable world standing on the brink of war. China has unsurprisingly risen to become a world power and is embroiled in a modern cold war with the United States over the most precious resource on the planet rare earth elements.

Let's take a moment to just break down how disconcertingly realistic this scenario is. From weapons guidance systems to cellphones, rare earth elements are in basically every single electronics product and are currently mined almost entirely by China. As the world attempts to wean itself off of oil in our own time, the very technologies being employed to do so require more and more of these metals. The team at Treyarch dreamed up Black Ops 2's story over a year ago in conjunction with legendary script writer David Goyer (Batman Begins) and consulting from Peter Singer of the Brookings Institution. Since that time, news story after news story has corroborated the likelihood that rare earth elements are a future point of contention. See, for instance, President Obama's recent speech regarding China's hold on these precious materials.

Treyarch still wants Black Ops 2 to deliver the over-the-top visual spectacle people have come to expect from Call of Duty, and a cold war alone just won't do. To enable a future where there's cause to have vast battlefields filled with explosions and the chaos of combat, Black Ops 2's campaign introduces another future threat to the world: cyber terrorism. At some point in Black Ops 2 a terrorist organization gets inside America's vast drone network, using its most powerful military asset to bomb the hell out of its own cities. Like a scene out of The Terminator, Black Ops 2's take on the attack on Los Angeles pits man against a seemingly unstoppable hunter-killer onslaught. The United States currently has well over 5,000 drones in its fleet, and all signs point to this growing considerably larger by 2025. As recently as October of last year America's drone network was attacked by a virus, showing yet again how Treyarch's version of the future is startlingly grounded in current events.

Like the AT-AT, only way more realistic.

Every part of the Black Ops 2 campaign has been broken down and reworked to tell the best story Treyarch can. The team tweaked its graphics engine, resulting in visuals that look a bit better than what's come before. Facial animation has also received special attention, and Black Ops 2's characters will be more expressive than what you've seen before. Goyer and the staff at Treyarch have even reconceived the way they introduce and create the game's villain. Previous Call of Duty games had obvious bad guys like Nazis or underdeveloped villains you didn't understand. This time around the hope is that by learning how the terrorist leader Menendez was "created," what inspired his path of vengeance, that he'll mean more as a character when he's lashing out. With a character like Heath Ledger's The Joker to his name, Goyer certainly has experience creating memorable and even sympathetic villains.

The phrase "cinematic experience" gets tossed around a lot when discussing what it means to make a Call of Duty campaign, leading many people to (justifiably) associate the series with heavily scripted and linear single player stories.Treyarch wants to defy those expectations with Black Ops 2, creating the first Call of Duty campaign with branching story threads. Little has been revealed about what that actually means, but the goal is to introduce parts of the story you can fail; you can succeed in keeping Menendez from achieving his goals, or enable him. The developers also want to have you make important decisions, resulting in what Treyarch hopes will be a non-linear narrative with plenty of replayability.

To help diversify the single-player experience, Treyarch's introducing "Strike Force" missions. Rather than just dumping players into another level, having them control someone with an alternate name, and telling them this is "different," Treyarch's breaking new ground for the series. You control a black ops group, choosing from a number of levels based on the threat each presents in the current cold war. Success isn't guaranteed, and if all your operatives die you lose the missions, changing the course of the conflict. You also pick one mission at the cost of others, meaning that you and your friends might not experience the same battlefields.

Strike Force missions are even more exciting because of how you play them, though. Each Strike Force mission acts as a small sandbox battlefield, letting you choose the order you complete objectives. Cooler still, you get to choose what units you play as on the fly. Flesh and blood soldiers deploy alongside walking robots and UAVs, and at any given time you can zoom out to an overwatch view of the battlefield, selecting a new unit and then shifting to its perspective. Like some sort of god of war, you can rapidly possess whatever unit suits your needs in the moment. You can also issue orders from the overwatch mode, playing through entire Strike Force missions in a real-time strategy fashion.

When it comes to putting you in the boots of a soldier, Black Ops 2's future doesn't look all that different. After all, 2025 is only 13 years away, so don't expect crazy Star Trek-esque phazers or lightspeed travel. The technology powering your operatives and soldiers in Black ops 2 has been worked and reworked to not feel too "future-y," taking just a few liberties based on stuff that already exists. For instance it's widely accepted that robots are going to become more and more important on future battlefields, and Black Ops 2 brings many to bear. From man-sized walking robots reminiscent of the now famous BigDog, to small swarms of machinegun-mounted UAVs, you'll be fighting against and with a number of mechanized soldiers.

Tweet us your tips »Black Ops 2 also makes use of new interfaces and weapons systems somewhat based off current technology. Soldiers have flexible screens on their wrists they can use to call in support, as well as wrist-mounted Iron Man-like launchers that fire small explosives. Also showcased was a new sniper rifle that uses millimeter wave technology -- the same thing in airport security scanners to see through walls. The same rifle also uses charged shots to sling ammo at high velocity, giving you the option to shoot through different density walls depending on how long you prime the shot. New vehicles also make an appearance, such as a VTOL aircraft Mason pilots.

Details on multiplayer remain scarce, but Treyarch confirms that all multiplayer will take place in the 2025 universe. Expect all of the tech previously discussed, alongside a revamped combat training system for new players. The goal at this point isn't to just make Black Ops 2's multiplayer fun to play, but fun to watch, and Treyarch would love to break into the E-Sports scene. You can also expect Activision's Call of Duty social network, Call of Duty Elite, to be integrated at launch.

Humans fight alongside small flying robots.

For years people have speculated that Call of Duty would jump ahead in time, but instead of warp drives and teleporting Treyarch's presented an unsettling and plausible future. When it comes to a franchise as successful as Call of Duty, big changes mean big risks, and Black Ops 2 looks like a smart and tempered new direction for the series. It attempts to address longstanding criticisms regarding formulaic campaigns, and doesn't rely on events that already occurred to create a plot. Treyarch's version of the coming years makes me a bit scared of what's to come for us, but I've never been more excited to see where the series goes next.